Occasionally, it is necessary to resurface city streets. In some cases, a portion of the old street or roadway is ground away to provide a suitable base for the new surface. When a portion of the old street has been removed, manhole covers and their supports, present in the street, protrude upwardly from the ground surface thereby creating a hazard to vehicles. To protect the vehicles from damage which could occur if the vehicle strikes the manhole support, barricades are normally erected around the supports thereby creating traffic bottlenecks.
When the street has been resurfaced, the resurfacing material, which is usually asphalt, covers the manhole supports and manholes. Workmen then chip away the asphalt material from the manhole supports thereby creating holes in the new surface until workmen are able to repair the same. In such a case, barricades are normally also erected around the manhole until the workmen have had an opportunity to repair the surface.
The applicant in U.S. Pat. No. 4,808,025 addressed these above-mentioned problems. While the invention, which was the subject of the '025 patent, has worked quite well for its intended purpose, the applicant has found that in some instances it is not desirable to use stakes to temporarily secure the device in place. In some cases, the area adjacent the manhole support is not sufficiently stable to permit the stakes to firmly secure the device. Another problem associated with the use of stakes is that a special tool must be used to remove the stake. Additionally, the use of stakes requires that the appropriate hole be drilled into the road surface. Drilling of the hole into road surface requires the use of proper drilling equipment which utilizes expensive carbide or diamond-tipped drill bits. Furthermore, the use of stakes requires more labor and effort to secure and/or remove the device and thus, increasing labor costs.
The applicant has also found that while the device is temporarily secured into position, the device does not work well in those cases where the device need only be secured for a very short duration and/or must be repetitively removed so as to permit further work to be done in the area adjacent the manhole support.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a temporary device which may be used with manhole supports during street repair operations which does not require the use of stakes to temporarily secure the same to position.
Another object of this invention is to provide a temporary device which may be used with manhole supports during street repair operations to eliminate the necessity of erecting barricades around the same.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide a temporary device which may be firmly secured in place yet readily removable without requiring the use of any special tools.
A further objective of the invention is to provide a temporary device which may be used with a manhole support comprising a resilient ramp positioned around the manhole support to provide cushion contact between a vehicle wheel and the manhole support.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a temporary device which may be used in connection with manhole supports during street repair operations including means for securing the device to the roadway.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a temporary device of the type described which is economical of manufacture, durable in use and refined in appearance.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.